Kick-Out!! Network

Monday, June 28, 2010

WWE Raw thoughts - June 28, 2010

Live blogging tonight, despite being in a bad mood. I went to McDonald's tonight and got a bad Coke... McDonald's Coke is supposed to taste better all the time, what up with that?! Poor dietary choices aside, let's hope Raw doesn't add to the bad taste in my mouth.

Some good news already, I totally forgot that Rob Zombie is hosting tonight's show. Here's hoping he performs "Never Gonna Stop" for Edge, just for old time's sake. And speaking of Zombies, I've been reading the hell out of The Walking Dead in preparation for the upcoming AMC series. What does this have to do with wrestling? Absolutely nothing, but it's an awesome book and you should read it because zombies are awesome. And instead of the ridiculous comics they're putting out now, WWE should do a WWE Zombies comic ala Marvel Zombies, The Undertaker eating Randy Orton's brains? I'd totally buy that.

Cold open for Monday Night Raw with Michael Cole & Jerry Lawler recapping the Vince McMahon situation, the NXT Rookies are now officially known as Nexus and apparently Wade Barrett has been summoned to explain their actions in front of WWE officials.

But as they always say in WWE, "the show must go on," and this show kicks off with the WWE Champion, Sheamus... fella! Sheamus mocks John Cena's "the champ is here!" slogan and is getting mercilessly booed by this Philadelphia crowd. But Sheamus doesn't care, he hates Cena as much as Philly hates him, so it all kinda balances itself out. And speaking of John Cena, I bet you'll be shocked - SHOCKED - to hear this, but John Cena has just interrupted Sheamus' promo! Sheamus isn't going to give Cena another title shot, but that's not what Cena wants, he wants Sheamus' help. Wait, what? Cena points out the obvious, if Nexus came after him when he was WWE Champion, it won't be long before they come after the new WWE Champion. Cena wants to fight side-by-side with The Celtic Warrior but COLE'S GOT MAIL!

Our Anonymous GM has ordered a cease-fire between the WWE Superstars and Nexus while Wade Barrett pleads his case in front of WWE Management. Also, it should be noted that the anonymous GM is a laptop on a podium with an official RAW GM Seal. Hysterical. Cena tries to goad Sheamus into a WWE Title match, but the Celtic Warrior is already in action later against Mark Henry. Cena wants the GM to email him personally at candypants564@gmail.org (it's a nonprofit thing), but Cena will get his title match at Money in the Bank... inside a steel cage! Not sure I was sold on John Cena Open Mic Night, but a solid opening segment, if only we could lose that stupid email sound effect.

The Hart Dynasty is kicking off the in-ring action tonight... or so we thought before they were attacked from behind by The Usos & Tamina. The Usos seemed content with the quick beat down, but Tamina wanted more and hit Natalya with the Superfly Splash. Simple and effective, but weird to put something like this at a point in the show that traditionally has an actual match.

R-Truth doesn't want the Nexus fired because the WWE is a zoo and he's the zookeeper. Seriously, that was his promo in its entirety.

Vladimir Kozlov vs. Santino Marella is our actual opening contest (seriously), and it looks like it was nothing more than an excuse to get these guys to finally buddy up. William Regal tried to pick the bones after Kozlov destroyed Santino, but The Moscow Mauler wasn't having any of that and took out Master Regal... then took Santino out on his shoulders. Bromance!

Finally, Rob Zombie has arrived and the show has become Monday Night Rawb! I picked up Helbilly Deluxe 2 a couple weeks ago, if you're a Zombie fan, give it a listen, it's pretty good. Zombie's doing a hell of a job getting the crowd pumped up (put this guy on commentary instead of Cole), and announces the eight participants for the Raw Money in the Bank - Randy Orton, The Miz, Chris Jericho, Evan Bourne, John Morrison, R-Truth, Ted DiBiase (really?), and Edge, who interrupts our guest host. Edge claims he dropped Zombie's "Never Gonna Stop" as his theme music, Zombie says he took it back, but this all just seems to be an excuse to show a highlight reel of Edge's first MITB win and cash-in. Decent enough line-up for the Raw MITB though, and it sets up an 8-man tag for tonight's main event: Edge, Chris Jericho, Ted DiBiase & The Miz vs. Evan Bourne, Randy Orton, R-Truth and John Morrison. I love when Raw has big tag main events like this, but seriously, Ted DiBiase? I'd put Virgil in there before DiBiase!

How the hell are they going to fill out the rest of the Money in the Bank card if all the big names are in the ladder matches?

Oh dear, white guys in the crowd dancing and singing along to "Somebody gonna get dey ass kicked" might be the highlight of this show so far. Mark Henry vs. Sheamus is up next and while Henry got some impressive offense in, including a military press on big Sheamus, one Brogue Kick was all it took for the WWE Champion to make quick work of the World's Strongest Man.

Nexus is backstage, and it amuses me that even though Skip Sheffield and Michael Tarver were completely bland on NXT and wound up being two of the first three eliminations, they're somehow the best parts of the group now.

Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat's DVD comes out tomorrow! Do I even need to tell you to buy it? Well, the video package they just showed to hype it featured Steamboat fighting NINJAS! If you don't buy this DVD, you're not a wrestling fan. Yeah, I said it.

And just to make it better, Ricky Steamboat is here! Arn Anderson, Dean Malenko, Mike Rotunda, and Michael PS Hayes are in the building to pay respect to the Dragon as well! Okay, finally something really cool on this week's show. Michael Hayes doing the Freebird dance might be the highlight of my month, now if only he could sing "Badstreet USA" for us. Fun and classy tribute from these WWE Legends, but you know when something in wrestling is heartwarming, bad things are around the corner, and that's the cue for The Nexus. The Legends aren't WWE Superstars, so they're fair game. The Legends have the higher ground in the ring, but Nexus uses the old divide and conquer technique to gain the advantage. Like a pack of hyenas, Nexus just topped themselves for A-hole move of the year.

Since most of the roster is in the main event tonight, WWE used an entire segment for replay of the Nexus attack. While we're waiting, let's take a trip to Badstreet, Atlanta, GA:

Alicia Fox & Maryse vs. Eve & Gail Kim up next... let's just watch Badstreet, USA again! The further down that block you went, the badder it got!

Main Event time! Excuse me... MEGA MAIN EVENT TIME!! and it's a massive eight-man tag: Edge, Chris Jericho, The Miz & Ted DiBiase (REALLY!?) vs. R-Truth, John Morrison, Evan Bourne & Randy Orton. Zack Ryder should totally be in this match instead of DiBiase, you know it! DiBiase and Morrison start things out, luckily for Morrison, Miz isn't in there or this one would be over already. And why are the good guys in the bottom corner?! My world has been shattered! Fun 8-man tag though, until the silly ending where Orton came in, RKO'd DiBiase and picked up the win. I know Ted sucks and all, but really, one move? Alright. Mayhem ensues after the match, not unlike last minute hype for the Royal Rumble, but this time, there are ladders! Randy Orton poses with the briefcase atop of the ladder, pretty much guaranteeing that he won't be winning at the PPV, which is fine, because he obviously doesn't need it at all.

Terrible Raw. The Nexus attack was the most entertaining part of the show and the main event was enjoyable, but that's about it. Useless filler, pointless replays and constant commercials dragged this show way down. Hype for MITB was solid, but putting all those guys in one match really hurt this show overall. I assume that'll only be a one week thing and hopefully things will improve next week, but I worry WWE could back themselves into that same corner at the PPV.

Zombie was a lot of fun in the aforementioned six seconds, I wish he could do more with WWE. The guy knows how to pump up an audience, he's a fan of the product, and he's Rob f'n Zombie! Can we at least use his song for the Raw theme instead of shitty Nickelback?

@johndulong In the strictest sense of the word, no, the actual match wasn't awful. I was just so burned out on the show in general at that point that, really, I couldn't bring myself to care about it.

In that case my gripe was that it was more of an awful idea, if anything, cramming almost every relevant person on Raw into one throwaway match like that. It left the rest of the show feeling kind of pointless.

it was obvious they were just trying to fill time because of the MEGA MATCH, but couldn't they find something better than constant recaps and replays? i mean really, i'd rather have seen Ryder get a win over Goldust or something in a throwaway 7 minute match than see -commercials-legends laid out/nexus recap- commercials- nexus recap of vince attack- commercials- divas match- commercials.

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